Apples and Pears :)

:iagree: This is a very good idea!

Cappuccino Crunch Edy's French Silk Edy's Chocolate (they use molasses so a richer flavor) Cherry Chocolate Chip When I was a kid we would go to the ice cream shop and I would get a double scoop waffle cone. The first scoop was always Rocky Road and the second was Mint Chocolate Chip. It was so good!

I haven't read the thread by the Catholic mom or much of TCOO, but I do know that the big Catholic Charlotte Mason online curriculum, Mater Amabilis, uses TCOO. According to their notes it isn't anti-Catholic, but if you use it you will need to add in some Catholic things because there are not a lot in the book. http://materamabilis.org/ma/teachers-notes-2/this-country-of-ours-by-h-e-marshall/ They have a note about ch. 9, which they say is true, but presents Catholics in a bad light, so you may want to edit with young children. If this is what the mom was complaining about ( part of the text that was historically true, but made Catholics look bad ) I can understand the Advisory of a Protestant Curriculum standing by that.

My name was ranked 471 the year I was born and was 3rd last year. It is a bit odd. I never met another Sophia growing up, but now I meet all these people whose little girls have my name. When I was younger I never would have guessed that.

I've been using vinegar. It seems to work pretty good for me. There is still a very faint vinegar smell, so don't try it if that bothers you :)

We use Rod & Staff and I just let them write in the book. It is still cheaper than CLE that way.

We had two cats that went missing at the same time. I got a call a few days later that someone had found one of them. They gave me directions to their house ( in my subdivision ) and me and the kids headed that way. As soon as we pulled up I saw our cat in their front yard. I picked it up and went and knocked on the front door to thank them. No one answered. Then my phone rings and the same person wants to know how long till I get there. I said I am here in your yard holding my cat. He sounded confused and said be was sitting on his front porch holding my cat... I ask for directions again, and it turns out I had messed up the first time and went to the wrong house and found one cat and then got the directions right the second time and went to the right house and he had my other cat! The two house were within 200 ft. of each other, but I think its still a pretty cool coincidence.

Ambleside is my favorite curriculum, but when I try to use it exactly my kids complain and I always end up feeling behind. I don't know what would work for you, but we now just use the parts we like. Life's too short to do things you don't like unless you must and OIS at 9yrs old is not a must :) We are on our 2nd SOTW and my boys love it. I have OIS and the others on my shelf and we are going to read through them too...later.

Maybe teens trick-or-treating is a regional thing? I rarely see any here (SW VA) and none of my teen's friends are going to...

Well I took my cat in for a $17 shot the other day and they thought there might be something wrong and kept her overnight. She ended up being fine, but it was closer to $200 when I took her home the next day.

I tried to make Ambleside or just CM work for years off and on. I wanted the feast - math, lang. arts, science, history, art, artist study, comp study, folksongs, hymns, handicrafts, memory, piano, character and habit training, and religion... I am way too relaxed (read lazy) to actually get around to all that, so I always ended up feeling guilty. Now I take it day by day and aim lower with less boxes to check. Its not what I dreamed of, but its not actually that bad and WAY less stress.

A few years ago I signed up on a radical unschooling yahoo group. I was only a member for one day. If I remember it right, there was an about 10yr old boy who had taken a gun into his house and shot his laptop. This was the second time he had done this and the mother thought that she shouldn't buy him a new one this time. She thought he should have to earn money and buy his own. All the other moms started basically attacking her just for that. Nobody ever mentioned that you should not allow a 10yo to shot laptops in your home or that he should in the slightest be punished. I knew then it was not the group for me.

Dove dark chocolate

Kashi Mediterranean at Kroger and Sam's Club is wonderful, and we like the cheap Red Barons at Wal-Mart, too.

I can't remember which old book, but I remember one where some older lady who was not the mother - possibly the grandmother- was "nursing" the baby, which I found odd. The the dad was "nursing" the baby, so I finally figured out it must have simply meant holding and comforting back then. Also, in regards to the *N word, I hope I can say this without it sounding bad, but when we were listening to the unabridged audio of Robinson Crusoe in the minivan and it was saying THAT word we were stopped at a red light with the windows down. I looked over and a carload of black people were all staring at me because they could hear the words to our story. It was not happy stares. I wanted to say, " This is an unabridged version of the children's classic Robinson Crusoe and I'm sorry but I didn't know that word was in there." But I just tried to look apologetic and dropped my head till the light changed.

Well, you could just buy the grade level Seton workbooks for your younger ones... We just use a set of Childcraft books I got at the library book sale.

I noticed the family size Campbell soup cans have gotten much smaller than they were even a month ago. I also hadn't had a Reese's Cup in forever, so I bought one the other day and I KNOW they used to be much bigger.

nw :)

:iagree: Knowing that I can "offer it up" has been a great comfort to me.

When my children were younger I tried to find the 'most right' Church by comparing Bible verses. I never once considered the Catholic Church (although I did think it was beautiful ), because they did things that were obviously not in the Bible. I remember thinking you could look up verses that seemed to support each Church's teaching ( I could find verses that made it seem like you had to be baptised and then find verses that made it seem like you didn't, for example), so how could I ever compare and know for sure? I was really troubled and so I prayed about it. There were lots of different things that I noticed after that prayer that finally ended with us joining the Catholic Church. This included small things like just how holy EWTN looked compared with some of the other religious channels and bigger things, also. I think the main thing, though, was when I read that the Bible never said that it was to be the ultimate authority. That really started to open my eyes. God Bless. I will pray for you and your family.

My daughter has taken General Science, Physical Science, and just started Biology last week. We love it!

And then there's Angelicum too: www.angelicum.net

Thank you so much! Did you enroll in any of the classes? If so, how are the working out?

I had a link to a free (online, I think) high school, but now I can't find it or remember what it was called. I think it was new and I remember they had some foreign languages like Arabic and maybe French. Anybody know?